Two At Sea

January 29, 2014

Our next stop was a place called Snells Beach, a seaside suburban area. While the beach was nice in a low-key way, the suburb was dated and not particularly attractive. Nearby was another seaside area called Algies Bay. It didn’t have much in the way of a beach, but this protected bay was full of boat moorings and overall was prettier than Snells. In general, though, we wouldn’t call either one a must-do. Below, photos of Snells Beach and Algies Bay (click to enlarge and scroll).

Now, we headed down the long finger of a peninsula to Mahurangi Scenic Reserve, specifically a place called Scotts Landing. Through the trees, we started to glimpse views of the area as we drove down the road, and not surprisingly, it was really beautiful. This harbor is filled with peninsulas and inlets, peaceful bays, forested headlands and green pastures. Since the waters are very  protected, there are lots of boats on moorings, but the numerous shallow areas keep this harbor from being overrun with them.

After parking near a pier and admiring the harbor, we walked to the area called Scotts Landing, a historic site with a restored homestead that was a boarding house in the 1800’s. The walk along the boardwalk was so pretty, and Scotts Landing was particularly magical and special. Huge trees lined a stony beach, grassy lawn areas surrounded the old homestead, and just offshore sat an island, so close that a person could walk out to it at low tide. This unusual combination of attributes gave the place a dreamlike, surreal feeling, and the warm early evening sun added to the effect.

We walked by a small group picnicking on the beach with champagne, grilling something that smelled wonderful, and I felt a little envious of the happy gathering taking place in such an incredible setting. It’s funny: the objective of this outing was for me to see this area so we didn’t have to try to do it by boat, but that wasn’t the way it was working out. This area was so pretty that I was actually getting more interested in bringing the boat here, and even Rich was feeling intrigued.

The sun was getting lower in the sky, and we still had a couple more stops to make so we pulled ourselves away from Scotts Landing. As we drove up the peninsula, we spotted a kakariki, a small green and red parrot, perched on a tree near the side of the road. We stopped and it flew off before I could get back to it, but I did see two rosellas, wildly colorful parrots native to Australia that have ended up in New Zealand. All this gorgeous scenery and parrots, too!

Next up, more Matakana magic. –Cyndi

May 30, 2020

Cruising is a little wonderful and a little strange in that two days after we set off, we’re in a new city but living in the same house. Here’s the view now…

We’re in Napier after a two day motor up from Nelson. We’ve been here twice before. It’s good to be back. We’ll wait here for weather to make the additional two days and 350 nautical miles to Auckland.

Here’s where we are…

-Rich

May 29, 2020

Hey, that’d be a good name for our boat… “Sudden Changes.” Wednesday  we were talking about our immediate futures. One of us suggested spending some time in Auckland. One of us sent off a couple of emails to marinas in Auckland. About 7PM, we got an affirmative response from one of them telling us they have a spot for Legacy and welcoming us.

One of us checked the weather forecasts and much to our surprise, it looked good. By 9pm, we’d walked to the grocery store for a provisioning trip for the first two-day, 300 mile passage from Nelson to Napier.  By 7 AM Thursday morning, we were on our way.

Here’s our last look at the South Island, where we’ve spent so much time during the past year and a half. This is Cape Jackson at the tip of Queen Charlotte Sound and the lighthouse right off the point.

And our first glimpse of our destination – the North Island…

Our decision seems spur-of-the-moment and maybe reckless, but not really. It doesn’t look like Australia will be opening up anytime soon and it’s really cold in Nelson in the fall and winter. By getting out of the 40’s (latitude, as in Roaring Forties), it looks like the temperatures might be a little more survivable for the softies on Legacy. Also, we like Auckland and always like new restaurants and new scenery.

We’re underway now. One of us is sacked out in the bunk and one of us is typing this nonsense. We hope to be in Napier tomorrow about noon, with the high tide. It looks like we may have to spend a week there before we get weather to go an additional 300 miles to Auckland. That’s OK: There are restaurants in Napier that both of us like! -Rich

January 29, 2014

After our visit to Matakana and Leigh, I’d planned a hike on the seaside peninsula of Tawharanui Regional Park, a nature reserve.

To create this reserve, original New Zealand forest had been regenerated and species of birds, now rare on the mainland, had been brought in to repopulate the forest. To accomplish this, the area had to be cleared of non-native animals, a somewhat controversial process that involves trapping and in this case, the dropping of poison. It’s sad that the animals (possums, rats, stoats, and feral cats) had to pay the price for the human carelessness that brought them here in the first place, but the birds were here first, and since they don’t exist in other countries, when they’re gone from here, they’re gone. Rich and I have no issues with the methods needed to restore trees, plants and native bird life to the nature reserves in New Zealand.

And so we drove out on the peninsula towards the reserve, passing through grassy pastureland and many, many pukekos (New Zealand’s big blue bird). Native New Zealanders hardly take notice of them, but for us they’re fun to see as we have nothing like them in America. As far as we’re concerned, there can’t be too many pukekos! Below, a few photos of the lagoon area en route to the reserve (click to enlarge and scroll).

We continued to the parking area of the nature reserve, very appealing with broad lawn areas and scattered large trees along the two beaches. We took a walk to check out those beaches, both very attractive and worth a visit even without the nearby reserve.

We then headed down the path into the reserve and, in contrast to the grassy pasture land and bush in this area, we found ourselves surrounded by densely-vegetated New Zealand subtropical forest. This was something we’d expect to see on a remote island or mountains, not here in wine country. Soon we started to spot birds, including parrots—big brown kakas and colorful kakarikis. And we could hear the chorus of bellbirds. Every year in New Zealand, the number of birds from these threatened species grows, and it’s a joy to see. What an achievement to create this reserve, one of several of this type that have been created on the mainland.

We continued our walk, eventually exiting the forest and ending up in grassy pastureland. The walk had taken a good hour, a bit longer than planned, but it was beautiful. Below, a few photos of Tawharanui Reserve.

After our hike it was time for more food and drink; so we headed to a winery called Heron’s Flight. Here, we found a charming winery hut, pretty grounds, and a cat and a dog to pet. I tasted 5 wines and didn’t love any of them; but we fell in love with, of all things, their grape juice. We’re not normally into grape juice, but this was so good we bought a case.

Next up, we headed to a place called Charles Gelato Garden, another famous ice creamery located in Matakana. We got dark chocolate and passionfruit gelato and it was spectacular, our new winner for the best ice cream in New Zealand.

Our next stop was an area called Sandspit, a large and rather shallow body of water protected by a large boulder-barrier sandspit and home to the region’s marina and a large mooring field. I hadn’t expected to be impressed with remote and shallow Sandspit; so I was surprised to find it’s really very pretty here!

Sandspit is also the location of a small ferry that goes to beautiful Kawau Island, and some of its residents keep cars at the marina so they have transportation once they get over here. That would definitely be an example of the good life: a home on peaceful and magical Kawau Island, trips to Matakana for shopping and errands, and Auckland an hour away when one feels like visiting the big city.

Next up, we planned to head to the south end of the Matakana Region to more of the seaside areas. –Cyndi

May 21, 2020

Our anchor windlass has been slowing down for a while now. I took out the motor and had it checked and was told it was like new. Voltage drop?

Yep, that’s what it was. I measured the voltage drop across the various cables while bringing up the anchor (to load the winch) and found that we were losing almost two volts across the ground cable. Usually, that’s just a bad connection, but in this case, the problem went deeper.

The end pulled off the cable without too much difficulty – a bad sign! The wire inside was like powder. In this situation, I’d usually just cut a little wire back a little and put a new fitting on the end. With the severity of the corrosion, I had a bad feeling about this solution. I cut the wire a few meters from either end and this is what I found…

I’ll need to replace the entire cable all the way back to the batteries. Yuk. I guess I’m glad we found it before it failed and we had 50 meters of chain to pull in by hand! -Rich